Same Heart Rate = Same Calorie Burn?

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  • ladyoflucky13
    ladyoflucky13 Posts: 41 Member
    ..... For me, this issue is more psychological with regard to seeing the same heart rate and trying to achieve the same burn since I have a tendency to push through the pain and cause more damage otherwise.

    well, this is an entirely different problem and i would recommend that you address that as opposed to anything fitness related.

    I am trying to also address this. It is just very hard sometimes to tell a good burn from bad and know how much to push yourself. If I wanted zero pain, I wouldn't be able to workout at all with the heel and joint issues I have. Unfortunately, sometimes I don't realize until after a workout (or even the next morning) how much it hurts.
  • ladyoflucky13
    ladyoflucky13 Posts: 41 Member
    OK...found a good paper about this with a sample size of 115. http://www.braydenwm.com/cal_vs_hr_ref_paper.pdf

    The heart rate equation here is known to only be accurate of heart rates between 90 and 150. Basically, this only refers to steady state cardio and not getting scared or anything else that may raise your heart rate.

    Essentially, it shows that if you know your VO2max (I do not, but I've heard you can have it tested), standard heart rate equation variables (gender, age, weight, heart rate) account for about 83.3% of the variance in energy expenditure based on a given age, gender, weight, and VO2max.

    The equation that guesses your VO2max based on your other statistics, causes those statistics (age, gender, weight, heart rate) to account for 73.3% of the variance in energy expenditure.

    Therefore, if I use the basic heart rate equation without a measured VO2max to assume the same heart rate for me with my own set variables (which aren't going to change during a single workout period), it would show the same burn for different (steady state cardio) activities such as biking, elliptical, treadmill (if say my heart rate is an average of 125 doing any of them). However, up to 26.7% of what causes burn rates to be different may not be accounted for. However, that inaccuracy applies to a certain extent to any activity you do, so you can't say that cycling vs elliptical will be off by that amount. Most likely, the difference will be less because some factors will remain the same regardless of what activity you are doing (hydration, caffeine, lean body mass vs fat that makes up your weight, etc). Honestly, I think this makes me comfortable enough knowing that if my heart rate stays about 125 during a steady state activity that the calorie burn most likely isn't going to be radically different between cycling and elliptical. They are far more similar to each other than boxing, swimming, and other activities where the STEADY part of steady state cardio is less easy to achieve (at least for me). Also, I am similarly fit when it comes to both. Certainly, if the activity in question uses different muscles and causes an unusual increase in heart rate because of newness to that motion, this wouldn't apply. However, I have been using the elliptical and cycle both pretty consistently so expect that my fitness in relation to both is fairly similar.

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